All successful desktop operating systems tend to cater for the use cases of the common man.

Those people that don't even know what save means and scatter files across all devices in the locations suggested by the applications, using whatever was suggested as default name.

These are the people that macOS, Windows, Ubuntu/GNOME, browser based OS cater for.

I share the same feeling every time I have to dig into Chrome or Firefox settings, specially on Canary.

That's why they all kind of suck.

I mean, there's a tradeoff - by catering to the use cases of the common man, you're limiting them to your interpretation of what the common man's use cases are. Computers are tools for creative problem solving - limit them too much, and you're literally taking away almost all the reasons to have one.

I particularly dislike ideas like "hide full path of folders" or hiding extensions for known file types - because it's in fact confusing the common man in a misguided attempt to help them. The filesystem and the way the OS interacts with it is a set of abstractions. Hierarchical folders and associating files to programs via name extensions isn't that hard to grasp. But when you obscure that abstraction, paper over it with some nice display features, you're taking away the ability of a common man to ever understand what's going on. When before one could be expected to maybe figure out a mental model for those things, now it's close to impossible - because the OS is lying or refusing to divulge essential information.

So I actually agree with dozzie's parallel comment. By treating users like idiots, we're turning them into idiots. And since "pros" are a market niche, we're literally turning mainstream computing into toys for idiots. It's a waste of potential, IMO.

Hiding file extensions is uniquely dangerous on Windows as the file extension is the canonical reference of what type something is. Change the .doc to .exe and the system will try to treat it as an executable. At least on other systems it's a convenience and the system identifies type and executable bit in somewhat more robust ways.

Yes, that's true too. It's a common Windows malware distribution vector - bad actors send files with names like "photo.jpg.exe" or even "photo.exe", with the icon resource in executable's metadata set to look like default image icon, or even a thumbnail of some real photo.

Not only on Windows, on other OSes as well.

Many developers don't rely on the OS API to check the file contents and use a simple extension checking.

Countless words have been written about this, but does MS see it as a problem?

Yep. It's about making things feel simple and easy, without actually being simple and easy.

My parents both started using word processors in the days of MS-DOS and they had no trouble grasping the idea of files and directories, or that a WordPerfect file ends in `.wpd`.

>>Hierarchical folders and associating files to programs via name extensions isn't that hard to grasp.

Actually a lot of people seem to struggle with it, I used to run training courses on a product that had a tree based configuration. As soon as you got beyond a basic list and started building a hierarchy half the class would fade away.

> half the class would fade away.

They didn't care, but every one understands it. Then there is also the basic belief that everything to do with a computer is hard, so they've already decided they can't understand it.

Tax returns > home > By year > (this number is federal, this other number is state)

Tax returns > business > By year > (this number is federal, this other number is state)

We use standard filing and organization like the a basic file system all the time, people have decided that it's hard on a computer.

Compare it to some trees they know from real life. Company organizational chart. School organizational chart (principal has teachers who have children). Country organizational chart (president over ministers over ...).

Trees are not a trivial abstraction, but they aren't also hard.

Well I don't do it any more but at the time I tried lots of different approaches, some people just don't seem to have the mental capability to handle the abstractions.

That's amusing actually. Average HN reader just cannot imagine an average people cannot handle abstractions at all.

If an average human couldn't handle abstractions at all, their brain would explode somewhere around being 2 years old. Everyone, even the biggest luddite, deals with shit ton of abstractions every day. The brain can handle it. The ego, quite often, cannot - and herein lies the role of a good teacher.

> by catering to the use cases of the common man, you're limiting them to your interpretation of what the common man's use cases are.

Or, using telemetry, user studies and more, you can actually figure out what those use cases are. It's not rocket surgery.

> Or, using telemetry, user studies and more, you can actually figure out what those use cases are. It's not rocket surgery.

Or you end up convincing yourself into thinking your own preconceptions are actually the real use cases. It's like social science, except most software development companies haven't heard of any kind of scientific rigour. Not to mention the study tools are broken on purpose too; it's not unheard of that people writing e.g. analytics / A/B-testing tools optimize them for the "wow it works" aspect - successfully, because most companies using them don't know squat about stats.

That said, even if you identify the right use cases, there's the orthogonal aspect of whether your tool will allow for those and only those use cases, or if it is a more general one.

I agree. The catering to the common man has become more and more prevalent over the years. The first thing I do on a fresh windows install is show full paths and full extensions. I was so pissed when I couldn't change the installation drive of Microsoft Office. Kinda like iOS vs Android. I think iOS purposely doesn't provide features/customizations to make their product easier to use for "the common man". I wish all these products would ask you on installation, how hands off do you want the product.

...and then we have plenty of idiots who don't know how the world works and think magically, because they were always isolated from OS internals, how the electricity works, how combustion engines work, etc.

I understand that you don't think computers should be effectively reduced to becoming 'black boxes' to most people, but I wouldn't necessarily agree that the simplification and abstraction of operating systems to average joes isn't exactly a bad thing. It's been happening for a very long time and I would think some of those advancements - inteded for the convenience of these 'average joes' - ended up gladly used by developers anyway. I feel it would be wrongful to call the wider audience 'idiots,' - these average joes might not be so average after all and have special understanding in fields that I don't.

Another thing is not just handling adults, but younger people. Of course there are some kids that may take a keen interest in OS internals, but then there are those who will keenly take advice they see on the internet to delete System32, so there's the need for some degree of 'safety'. Although I suppose I'm extrapolating a little, as it's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the foot in most OSes nowadays anyway, in spite of the default protections Windows/macOS offers.

> I feel it would be wrongful to call the wider audience 'idiots,' - these average joes might not be so average after all and have special understanding in fields that I don't.

My opinion is that the average Joes and Janes are not idiots. We're just turning them into idiots. They're much smarter than the industry practice would give them credit for. Ask them to learn something, and they will. Just that nobody today wants to expect learning from people. Everything is supposed to be so simple, that it can be mastered in 5 seconds of initial exposure. Of course this goal isn't possible except by dumbing the thing down so that there's nothing your product can do that can't be mastered in 5 seconds.

You have a good point about abstraction - it isn't a bad thing. We reduce insane amounts of complexity to the level a human mind can handle by layering abstractions on top of more abstractions. But the particular example of "features" like hiding file extensions or full paths is something else. It's creating a second, disconnected set of user-facing abstractions that obscure the real ones. The OS is literally lying to you in an attempt to make itself "less scary", but in the process taking away your chances of building a working mental model.

Average Jane and Joe aren't dumb, they can figure stuff out. Just look at anyone who ever did anything with accounting - they're all probably Excel whizzes. Your random teenager can likely hack the Steam client in and out. People can learn stuff when they're expected to. They're not dumb. We're making them dumb though.

> Of course there are some kids that may take a keen interest in OS internals, but then there are those who will keenly take advice they see on the internet to delete System32, so there's the need for some degree of 'safety'.

Honestly, that's how you learn. In today's age of cloud-backup-everything, there's little pain and all gain when a kid bricks the OS and has to figure out how to reinstall it from scratch.

I often imagine a dystopian future where the only children interred in software engineering are the children of software engineers, because they are the only people who'll have full access to their machines, or use anything other than glorified read only devices like tablets.

I'm sure we could find a subset of human knowledge that you are not familiar with, and also a group of people who are willing to call you and idiot because of it.

Of course we can, but it's not a field I interact with daily, it's not a fundamental thing in my life, and I don't think about how it operates as a magic that just happens.

They don't know because they don't want to know.

And they willing to pay (by money or by privacy) for the products that allow them to continue not knowing.

Except they're not. Full paths, hidden files, and file extensions are also now check boxes on the default File Explorer ribbon, along with a button for copy full path.

Plus, all the individual settings are searchable through the Start menu or the search box in the Settings app.